


Hero

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental overdose, Angst, Bad Boy Peter Parker, Bisexual Peter Parker, Dark Peter Parker, Drug Use, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt Peter Parker, Not really though, Peter Parker Angst, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Rebellion, Recreational Drug Use, Smoking, Suicide Attempt, Teenage Rebellion, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-24 01:07:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Maybe there's not that much of a difference between a hero and a villain. Maybe it's just a series of choices or even just the way people perceive you. Peter Parker doesn't want to be a villain, but maybe he no longer wants to be a hero either. Maybe he's just angry, and tired of following everyone else's rules. Maybe he just doesn't care what people think of him anymore.Or: an alternate timeline of that moment where Tony takes away Peter's suit.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & original characters
Comments: 46
Kudos: 138
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter deals with a "suicide-ish" kind of situation and the whole story includes lots of other content that might be triggering, so pay attention to the tags and read safely, loves.
> 
> Comments feed the author.

“Please, this is all I have, I’m nothing without this suit,” Peter begged. Everything hurt. He already hated himself for the mistake he had just made and now Tony was looking at him like that. Like he was worthless and a disappointment. 

“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it, okay?” Tony replied. Then, as an afterthought he muttered, “God, I sound like my dad.” 

But Tony Stark was not his dad. He was someone that Peter had previously always looked up to, but in this moment, after hearing that comment, Peter suddenly only felt angry. He was not a father-figure. He was cold and distant and absent. He didn’t care about how Peter had been feeling. He had ignored Peter’s calls this whole time just to come and yell at him now? Well maybe Peter wouldn’t have screwed up so badly if Tony had picked up the goddamn phone.

So Peter shook his head, taking a step back from Mr. Stark. It felt like his whole world was crumbling in on him all at once. 

Tony opened his mouth to say something else, probably another harsh remark, but Peter couldn’t hear any more lectures. He couldn’t handle it. He was already destroyed by everything that had happened today.

“Don’t,” Peter hissed in a tone that shocked both him and apparently Tony, because Tony seemed to actually hesitate. “You have no fucking right,” Peter continued, his voice cracking slightly, and this time Tony Stark’s face really did look shocked and mildly affronted at Peter using that kind of language, but Peter didn’t apologize because he was currently crumbling. 

Yet Tony didn't seem to care. He only seemed to react with more lectures. “This is what I’m talking about,” he bit back. “You’re not fit to be a hero.” 

The words felt like another slap across Peter’s face. He clenched his fists and turned away from Tony, so that he would not see how close Peter was to breaking. 

“Give me the suit,” Tony repeated. 

Peter walked to where he had left the mask sitting on the edge of the roof and grabbed it, throwing it at Tony forcefully. Tony caught it and looked at Peter like he was a teenage brat with an attitude, instead of realizing that Peter was genuinely really upset right now. 

“Now the rest of it,” Tony said flatly. 

Peter swallowed. His heart felt like it was in his throat. Tony was treating him like he was a failure, but maybe it's because he was. He had screwed everything up and now he was losing his suit and with it his identity as a rising superhero - the only thing that made him feel good about himself.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” he choked out, trying to calm his anger and beg for a different outcome. 

Tony’s face seemed to soften just slightly at that. Maybe he finally realized how badly Peter was hurting. 

“Kid, look at me,” Tony said slowly, taking a step towards Peter. 

Peter didn’t listen, couldn’t bring himself to look Tony in the eyes right now. He just took another step back from Tony to match Tony’s step forward, not really wanting him any closer because he felt too much like a failure. 

“Look, you’re making me awfully nervous being so close to that edge,” Tony said slowly. “Just come away from there and then we can talk.” 

Peter looked behind himself as he suddenly realized what Tony was reacting to and why he had suddenly stopped being angry, and he almost wanted to laugh. After all, he hadn’t been thinking what Tony apparently thought he was thinking, but also, it was a bit ironic for Tony to be worried since Peter was no stranger to jumping off of rooftops. Then another surge of anger suddenly coursed through him. Was that the only reason Tony Stark cared right now? The only reason he was showing any sort of concern for Peter’s feelings all of a sudden? Because he was afraid Peter was going to jump or something? 

Suddenly, it was like something in Peter snapped. He was so tired of being Peter Parker. And of being Spider-Man. He was tired of carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn’t want to do it anymore. All of his sadness and fear and hurt from tonight turned to an empty numbness.

So he laughed a humorless laugh, and he turned, and he stepped up to the edge of the roof. “This edge?” he asked Tony darkly. 

“Peter,” Tony said cautiously, slowly lifting his arms and the air around them suddenly ten times more tense. “What are you doing?” 

Peter didn’t respond, he just lifted one foot and did a little half-turn, testing his balance in front of the older man. He wasn’t going to fall, of course. He had excellent control and coordination and sticky feet. Just because Tony Stark was always doubting him didn't mean he didn't know what he was capable of.

“Look, I shouldn’t have been so harsh. Will you please get down from there?” Tony asked, rubbing a hand across his face and looking worried in a way that suddenly made Peter feel oddly powerful. It was nice to have the upper hand in a conversation for once. Tony seemed so out of his element in this moment, so unsure of what he was supposed to say to Peter, and Peter realized he kind of enjoyed it. He liked the realization that, if Peter wasn’t trying to please Tony Stark, then Tony Stark didn’t actually have any control over him.

“You know, maybe you’re right,” Peter mused, looking at the city below him. “Maybe I’m not fit to be a hero.” He didn't know what had come over him, but it felt good to stand up to Tony. It felt so much easier than always caring about other people's approval.

He briefly saw a look of genuine fear and confusion on Tony’s face now, and for a moment, he felt guilty. But then he remembered the months of no return calls, and why should he care about the man's feelings when he had so obviously ignored Peter's?

“Okay, no, I shouldn’t have said that, that’s not what I meant, I just… please come here,” Tony begged and he looked _flustered._ Peter wasn’t sure he had ever seen the man look flustered before. But still, it wasn’t enough to soothe the quiet anger boiling in Peter’s veins.

Peter closed his eyes for a moment, just listening to the sounds of the city below him and feeling the wind around him. It was nice. But then his spidey senses tingled, and he turned to see Tony creeping towards him. 

So Peter stared at Tony for another second, and then he sighed and casually stepped off the ledge. He heard Tony yell his name, and then it wasn’t even a few seconds before he heard Tony’s suit powering up and saw it flying towards him. 

But Peter had no intention of falling to the ground and he also had no intention of being caught. So right before he was within Iron Man’s reach (he wasn't sure if Tony was in the suit at this point or not), he shot his arm out and caught another building with his web, diverting his direction faster than Iron Man could grab him. He had a slight advantage here. He could swing with more unpredictability than Iron Man could fly. He could make more sudden turns and use gravity to his advantage to move him up and down to evade Iron Man's grip. 

And maybe because Tony realized now that Peter wasn’t trying to die, he stopped chasing. He quickly gave up, like Peter knew he would. That’s all he ever did was give up on him. 

So Peter flew across the city. He knew he didn’t have a mask on, so he stayed high in the air and moved quickly. He also knew his tracker was still disabled, so once he was out of Tony’s sight for a while, he chose another rooftop to land on. 

He felt a mixture of exhilaration and anxiety. He couldn’t believe he had just done that, had just stood up to Mr. Stark like that. Now that it was over, though, he started to regret it. He didn’t have his mask or his backpack and he didn’t have any other clothes on him, so now he felt a little stuck. Also, there was no way Mr. Stark was going to let him get away with that choice for very long. But even as he started to worry about what consequences he would be facing, he felt the bitterness rise up again.

Why did Tony Stark feel like he was allowed to tell Peter what to do? Just because he was rich and powerful and Iron Man? Just because he had offered him a fake "internship" and built him a suit? Well Peter's abilities belonged to Peter, not to Tony Stark. 

Suddenly, Peter felt like he didn’t even want the suit. He didn’t want to give Tony the opportunity to turn the tracker back on and he didn't want to feel like he owed Tony anything. So he waited until it got darker for more anonymity, and then he swung back to the first rooftop, where his backpack was still sitting abandoned. He pulled out his phone and texted Ned to bring him some clothes. 

They met in a dark and empty alley. Ned was freaking out over the whole ordeal and excited to feel like he was in on the action, asking way too many questions, but Peter really wasn’t in the mood for his antics. 

“Yeah, look, it’s been a long night, man. Let’s catch up at school, okay?” Peter asked tiredly. 

“Okay, sure, we’ll catch up then,” Ned said, trying to play it cool but clearly over-excited. 

Peter walked out of the alleyway and headed home, not excited to face May and explain why he was out so late on a school night. On the way, he found a random dumpster and discarded the Spider-Man suit. He wanted nothing to do with it anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

When Peter woke up the next morning, he felt nothing but dread. The adrenaline from last night had died out, and now he just hated himself. Not only had he made a huge mistake last night that could have gotten people killed, he had then topped that off with a huge melodramatic tantrum with Mr. Stark. What was wrong with him? He would have to call Mr. Stark and apologize profusely, of course. He would go retrieve the suit that he had thrown away and return it to Mr. Stark and beg for forgiveness. 

So he grabbed a quick breakfast, said a quick goodbye to May, and ran for the dumpster. However, when he got there, the suit was gone. The rest of the dumpster had not been emptied, which means someone had specifically retrieved the suit. Either Tony had turned the tracker back on and come to get it, or someone else had their hands on it. Peter seriously hoped it was the first option. 

Muttering to himself and suddenly very anxious, he pulled out his phone to call Mr. Stark. He needed to make sure that it really was him that had gotten the suit, because otherwise, things were about to get so much worse. Mr. Stark’s head might actually explode at hearing that Peter lost the suit. 

The phone rang twice, and then he got Tony’s voicemail. Correction, the lack of rings meant Tony had intentionally forwarded him to voicemail. 

“Mr. Stark, hey, it’s uh, it’s me. Peter. Peter Parker. I um, I wanted to say that I’m sorry for yesterday. For being reckless and also for running away from you. I uh, I really need to talk to you about something so if you could please call me back…” 

Peter hung up the voicemail and tapped his hand anxiously on the wall next to him. He felt panicked and a knot was forming in his stomach. He really needed to know what had happened to the suit. 

He knew he was supposed to go to school, and that Ned was waiting for him so that they could debrief the chaos of last night, but suddenly he felt like he couldn’t face that. He wasn’t in the mood for Ned’s overeager questions as though this was all fun and exciting. This was not a game and Peter was too on edge to deal with it. Plus, there was no way that he was going to be able to sit still and pay attention in class when all he could think about was last night and now the missing suit. Already, the events of the ferry boat were re-playing through his head and he felt sick thinking about it. He did not want to dwell on it all day. 

So Peter Parker did something very un-Peter Parker-like and decided to skip school for no reason other than because he did not want to go. He was reminded of the feeling from last night when he realized he didn’t have to listen to Tony Stark if he didn’t want to, and suddenly he decided he also did not have to report back to Ned if he didn’t feel like it. Ned didn’t understand this. Nobody really did. 

The reality was that Peter had had a really rough night last night and none of the other kids at his school had to deal with a fraction of what he did. Other kids cut class all the time for stupid reasons. Surely he had earned a day off of high school for something as extreme as what had happened to him last night. 

Feeling a newfound comfort in his decision, Peter took to walking around the city. He wasn’t sure what kids did when they skipped class and he didn’t have his suit, so he couldn’t do any Spider-Man business today, but honestly, he didn’t feel like it anyway. He just wanted to be an anonymous face in the crowd for the day. Just a normal teenager. For one day. Someone who didn’t feel responsible for anything. 

At first, he still couldn’t get rid of the gnawing feeling in his stomach about the suit. He tried calling Mr. Stark a couple more times that morning, but each time he got sent to voicemail. Eventually Peter decided that if Mr. Stark didn’t care enough to answer his phone about the suit, then Peter wasn’t going to care either. And that made the hole in his chest nearly go away. It felt good to not care. 

As the afternoon approached, he finally checked his phone. He had several missed texts from Ned, most of them asking him where he was and why he wasn’t at school today and if he was doing “SMB” (Ned’s code for “Spider-Man business”). But then the last text switched gears and said something about a party tonight and begged Peter to come. 

Deciding that he wanted to continue feeling like a “normal teenager” for a while longer, he agreed. 

Then he headed home to drop off his book bag that he had grabbed this morning when he thought he would be going to school. Aunt May was in the living room waiting for him. 

“The school called, said you were absent today. Want to explain?” Aunt May asked sternly. 

Peter quickly thought on his feet. “Mr. Stark is back in town, I was doing something for the internship, he said he had gotten permission from the school. I’ll call him and ask him to clear it up,” Peter lied. 

He was surprised at how smoothly the lie came out of his mouth, and honestly, it felt good to blame it on Tony Stark. Tomorrow he would take the school a plagiarized note with Tony’s name on it. After all, it was actually kind of his fault that Peter didn’t go to school today and if anyone dared to take it up with the man and could actually reach him, then maybe Tony would actually call Peter back about the suit. 

Apparently it was also convincing enough for May, because she not only didn’t question it, but she gave Peter permission to go to the party.

So that’s how Peter somehow ended up here, in some kid's backyard, smoking weed for the first time. Ned had gone home already, having made a fool of himself with some girl. But Peter had still been riding out his desire for a day of teenage normalcy and hadn’t been ready for it to end. For once, he decided he was going to be more social and less uptight, and somehow that meant he ended up befriending the kids that had the drugs. 

Peter had hesitated, of course. He had never thought of himself as the type of kid to try such a thing. But he wasn’t going to be Spider-Man anymore, so why shouldn’t he let loose a little more? He had no reason not to. Besides, it was only weed. So here he was. 

And he realized he kind of liked this group of kids. Most of them went to a different school but had found this party through a kid named Jordan, who apparently went to Peter’s school. They were all weird but in a cool way. They had very “don’t give a fuck” attitudes which was exactly what Peter craved right now. He was so tired of giving so many fucks.

Plus, with a little marijuana in him, Peter realized that he also liked himself more. He was less anxious and way more chill, and that made him actually have some social skills. Apparently he could make funny jokes and get through a conversation without stumbling over all of his words. Once he let his guard down, these kids seemed to actually think he was kind of cool too. And that felt  _ good.  _ It felt good to be appreciated and noticed for once, because lately all he had felt was criticized by Mr. Stark and hated by most of his peers and now the entire city was disappointed in Spider-Man. So if Peter wanted to spend some time with people that actually made him feel good about himself, what was so wrong with that? 

That’s when Peter decided that instead of bending over backwards for a man that made him feel like shit, he was going to start doing more of what felt good and focusing on the people who actually accepted him.

So when these kids gave him their phone numbers and asked him if he wanted to hang out this weekend, he agreed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I'm awful at coming up with names for original characters, but they're not a huge part of the story.

“Shouldn’t you be happy for me that I’m making more friends? I thought that’s something you'd be excited about,” Peter said. He had been stopped halfway out the door to go meet his friends. 

“Of course I am, it’s just that I feel like I hardly ever see you anymore,” May said. “You’re always so busy at that internship of yours or hanging out with these new kids, that I still haven’t met by the way. I just want the chance to check-in every once in a while. I’m worried you’re overloading yourself, you’re looking thinner and... different. Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Peter wanted to roll his eyes, but he maintained a trained smile instead. “I’m fine. You worry too much.” 

She relented and Peter scurried out of the apartment towards the subway. The truth was, he really did feel fine. He felt better than fine. He actually felt really good lately. 

It had been over two months since meeting his new friends at that party, and hanging out with them made him not want to be Spider-Man so much. It was nice to just go to their houses and smoke weed and laugh at dumb shit, or to cut class and smoke cigarettes and drink beers with them in a city alley somewhere. 

Once he had gotten over the initial fear of drugs and alcohol and the fear of breaking the rules, he started to really like it. Sure, sometimes he felt guilty lying to Aunt May. And sometimes he felt guilty about how he hardly ever talked to Ned anymore. But Ned just kept harassing him about the fact that he didn’t want to be Spider-Man anymore, and Peter was tired of feeling guilty or judged. He preferred to just hang out with his friends. It was nice to not care so much. It just felt easy and good in a way that his life never had before. 

Of course, every time he cut class, he provided the school with another plagiarized note from “Tony Stark.” He didn’t think the school was even trying to verify them, but if they were, that just gave Peter a little more sense of satisfaction. He had not heard from Tony since that night and had stopped trying to reach out, but if the school was harassing him on Peter’s behalf, well, that was just an added bonus and a fun little gamble. It fed his resentment towards the man and had kind of become his own little game at this point. And obviously nobody had actually reached Mr. Stark, because the excuse was still working. His absences were being marked excused and he was even being given extra credit in his classes because they thought he was working so hard at his “internship.” Plus, it turned out that he didn’t actually have to try that hard in school to pass his tests. Apparently he was just smart. 

Usually, it was just weed and beer, but several times now, Peter had experimented with other drugs too. The more he loosened up and tried them with his new friends, the less scary they seemed. It wasn’t like the billboards claimed. Trying them didn’t suddenly make all of his teeth fall out and make him crazy and make him unable to function without them. And that wasn’t just because he had altered DNA, either. He was happy to report that all of his friends also still had all of their teeth and were pretty normal, chill human beings. Plus it wasn’t like they were smoking heroin or anything and it wasn’t all the time. They were just occasionally experimenting with some pills that Jordan snagged from his mother’s medicine cabinet or something that Ash managed to get his hands on because he “knew a guy.” 

No, the drugs weren’t scary and terrible. They just made him feel good and they made him give less fucks and they made him stop replaying the memory of the ferry boat night in his head over and over.

Today, they were going to Jordan’s house and they were going to roll on MDMA. Peter had never tried it before. But he wasn’t anxious or doubtful about it the way the old Peter Parker would have been. He was just ready for a good time with his friends. 

And for a few hours, it was a good time. Until suddenly, it wasn’t. 

He was lying on Jordan’s bedroom floor enjoying the softness of the carpet. Izzy, a girl that seemed to have a crush on him (which, of course, made him feel great about himself) was lying next to him on his right side. A new friend, Aiden, was lying on his left side. They were all staring up at the ceiling and giggling. Peter couldn’t remember what they were giggling about, but whatever it was, they could not stop laughing. 

Then, as the laughter finally died down, Izzy propped herself up and looked at him, her eyes sparkling and her smile infectious, and she kissed him. With the drugs, it kind of felt like they were kissing in slow motion. It felt really, really good. But then Aiden sat up and made a comment about how it wasn’t fair to play favorites. Izzy pulled back and Peter thought she was going to kiss Aiden next, but instead, Aiden leaned in and kissed Peter. Izzy and Peter both broke out into another fit of giggles over this. 

Then Aiden smiled down at him and Peter realized he wanted to keep kissing him. So he kissed him again, more seriously this time. Izzy leaned in to kiss Peter's jaw at the same time, and that also felt really, really good. They weren’t going to go any further, of course. Other people were still in the room and it wasn’t even about that, really. It was more just about sharing each other’s energy and exploring this heightened mental state. To Peter, it just felt good to kiss people on MDMA. Plus, between the kissing, all three of them were still occasionally giggling like children.

Thank god that’s all it was and they still had all of their clothes on, because suddenly someone, Ash maybe, gasped and cursed loudly from across the room. 

And when Peter lazily opened his eyes to see what the issue was, he saw the very worst thing he could think of in that moment.

Tony Stark was standing in Jordan’s bedroom door, staring down at Peter. While Peter had a boy and a girl on either side of him, kissing him. 

Peter was possibly mortified, but it was hard to tell right now.

Peter quickly sat up as Izzy and Aiden both scrambled off of him to sit up too. It was easy to “give no fucks” when Mr. Stark was seemingly a ghost in Peter’s life, but he was still pretty fucking intimidating when he was here in the flesh. 

“Oops. Am I interrupting something?” Tony asked sarcastically as he strode in and made eye contact with Peter. 

Peter pulled his knees to his chest defensively. “What...uh, what are you doing here?” he asked. 

He had meant for it to sound angry, because logically he knew he was angry, but it turns out that just like he couldn’t quite tell if he was mortified, it was also kind of hard to actually feel anger while on MDMA. Something about pumping your brain full of excessive amounts of serotonin and dopamine apparently shuts off it’s ability to feel anything negative at all. Those things just felt kind of spacey instead. So the question just came out sounding a bit confused. 

“Outside. Now.” Tony demanded instead of answering. 

Peter felt the odd urge to ask Tony what was wrong and reassure him that everything was going to be okay, but he figured that might be a conversation better had away from his friends. These guys didn’t actually know anything about his connection with Tony Stark and seemed quite shocked to see the man here, barking at Peter. In his altered mental state, he did not want to let anything slip that he shouldn’t in front of them. So he reluctantly obeyed.

He couldn’t help but smile, though, when his friends all started bursting into laughter and casually saying, “bye Peter!” as he left, as though it was both the most absurd and also the most normal thing in the world for him to be suddenly dragged off by a famous billionaire.

As soon as they were out of the house, Tony grabbed Peter by the arm and pulled him into a car parked out front. 

“Hey, what the hell man?” Peter asked as he was being dragged down the driveway. It didn’t hurt, of course. Without his stupid Iron Man suit, Peter was way stronger than Tony. But it was still rude. 

Once they were in the car and the driver had pulled out onto the street, Tony cleared his throat and turned to look at Peter. 

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Tony asked.

Peter just laughed. “It’s really not what it looked like, we were just joking around.” 

“No _that_ is not what I’m talking about. I have absolutely zero interest in who you make out with,” Tony replied. “What I mean is, do you want to explain to me why I got a very concerned phone call from your Aunt today, chewing me out for ‘working you to the bone’ at your internship and ‘not prioritizing your education’ by pulling you out of school all the time?” Tony asked. “Apparently I’m working you so hard that you’ve stopped taking care of yourself?”

 _Oh._ Peter had maybe expected the school to call, but he had not expected Aunt May to call. That was worse, because that meant that Aunt May probably now knew that Peter was a liar and Peter was probably going to be grounded for a very long time.

Still, it was impossible for Peter’s brain to be too terribly worried about it at this particular moment. So he just shrugged. 

“Nothing? You have nothing to say for yourself?” Tony asked incredulously. “What have you actually been up to, huh? Did you not learn your lesson the first time? You need to be going to school, not skipping class to fight bad guys.” 

Peter grinned when he understood the confusion. “No, you don’t have to worry about that, I swear,” he replied earnestly. “I haven’t been fighting any bad guys.” 

“Then why aren’t you in school and why are you expecting me to cover for you?” Tony asked. 

Peter just tapped his fingers on his knee and looked out the window to watch the trees go by. “I just needed a break, you know?” he replied. “Why does everything have to be so serious all the time? The world doesn’t have to be like this, you know. It’s so nice to just relax. Maybe that's a good way to get rid of bad guys. Maybe we just need to teach them to relax.” Peter realized he was rambling, and then laughed at his own comment. 

The car was silent for a moment, and Peter took that time to notice the feeling of the car’s engine vibrating around him. 

“Look at me,” Tony demanded, breaking the silence, and this time his voice was even lower and even angrier, if that was possible. “Look. At. Me,” he repeated when Peter didn’t respond immediately. 

Peter raised his eyebrows, because there was really no need to be so _hostile,_ but he turned and looked at Tony anyway. 

“Are you high right now?” Tony asked suspiciously, grabbing Peter’s chin and leaning in to look at Peter’s eyes. 

Peter frowned. He didn’t feel like it was a good idea to answer that one. “Relaaax, Mr. Stark,” he said instead. 

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Tony hissed, dropping his grip on Peter’s face with a small push. He looked torn between possibly wanting to kill Peter and something else that was harder to define. But he didn’t say anything else to Peter. He just leaned forward to roll the divider down and mumbled something into his driver’s ear, and then typed some messages into his phone. They rode in silence. 

Peter didn’t mind. He quite enjoyed how smooth the leather seats felt under his fingertips.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time they got to wherever they were going (Avenger’s headquarters, apparently), Peter was mostly back down to earth and the reality of this situation was starting to sink in. He also didn’t feel great, and he wished he could be curled up in a bed right now instead of being stuck in this awful tension with Mr. Stark.

Tony had not said another word to him the entire drive, and at this point, Peter was afraid to break the silence. So he just silently followed Tony into the building. Tony led them into what looked like a really high-tech medical room and rummaged through a drawer before turning and handing Peter a small plastic cup. Peter immediately knew what it was for, and he put it back down on the counter in front of them. 

“No,” Peter said defiantly. 

Tony looked like he’d been slapped. “Kid, you are going to pee in that cup or so help me,” he threatened. 

But Peter was able to feel his anger again, and he was not having this. 

“STOP CALLING ME KID!” Peter snapped. “You’re not my dad. You’re not my boss. You’re not even my mentor. You don’t actually care to pick up the phone when I need you, so I don’t owe you anything. Why the hell should I pee in a cup for you?” 

He expected Tony to yell back, but Tony was eerily quiet. He just stared at Peter. Then he looked up and beyond Peter towards someone behind him that was now walking into the room.

Peter turned around to see an unfamiliar woman in a lab coat, presumably a doctor of some sort. Standing behind her in the hallway was Pepper Potts. Peter had never met her before, but he recognized her from the television. 

“Pepper,” Tony greeted her with what looked like a relieved sigh. He walked over to her, and closed the door behind him, leaving Peter standing there alone with the doctor.

Peter was not sure what was going on, but it didn’t seem good. He still didn’t think he had any reason to provide a urine sample for Tony though. He didn’t owe that man a goddamn thing. He was totally justified in just walking out of here. 

But before he could turn to leave, the doctor had come up behind him and snipped off a chunk of his hair, right up to the root. 

“Hey!” he barked, turning around to look at her. He was not sure how his spidey senses had missed that, but that wasn’t cool.

“Here’s the deal,” she said calmly as she placed the hair into a plastic baggie. “I won’t force you to provide a urine sample, so you have two options. You can pee into that cup and that will only tell Mr. Stark what drugs you’ve used in the past… oh, 3 days or so. Or, you can refuse, and I can test this hair sample. It takes a few days for hair growth to catch up to what your body metabolizes so it won’t show whatever you used today or the past few days, but it will tell Mr. Stark what drugs you’ve used in the past 3 months. Right now only you know what each of those results will be, so take your pick.” 

“This is illegal,” Peter muttered. “You need consent to perform medical tests on me.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tony remarked as he came back into the room, waving a piece of paper that he now held in his hand. “I’ve gotten consent from your aunt. And just wait until you hear about the rest of the deal.” 

“What are you talking about?” Peter asked. 

“Pepper gave your aunt a call while we were in the car. She wasn’t too happy to hear that you’ve been skipping school for the past couple of months and that you might be using drugs too. She was pretty freaked out, actually. She's been pretty worried about you as it was. Now, maybe you’re just smoking marijuana, which is still a terrible choice and you should know better. But it’s a mistake she’s willing to just ground you for. However, if that drug test comes back positive for anything more than that, well then, you get to stay here with me for a while. I’ve assured May that, since you’re an employee of Stark Industries, I can provide you with the best rehabilitative care if she signs custody over. I told her it might do you some good, and she seemed to agree.” Tony’s voice was firm, but it wasn’t really angry. Just matter of fact. 

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. He had so many emotions and frustrations flooding through him right now, but he mostly felt kind of dizzy. He also realized that it didn’t matter how upset he felt. The drug test was going to come back positive either way and he was destined to this fate. But that didn’t mean he had to like it or be nice about it. Plus, he wondered if (hoped?) there might be a slight chance that his enhanced metabolism meant his hair might be clean? There was no way his pee would be, he was still feeling some minor effects of the drug which meant it was definitely still in his system. But the doctor had said that the hair wouldn’t catch anything he used today and maybe his spidey-DNA would have flushed the old stuff out already. He didn’t know enough to know how it worked, but if there was any chance of getting out of this, that was it. 

“Test the hair then, because I’m not fucking peeing in a cup for you,” he replied as he angrily threw the cup at Tony, who caught it without much effort. Peter stepped his back to the wall and slid to the floor in a defeated slump.

“Very well, then,” the doctor replied, seemingly unphased by his outburst and offensive language as she took the baggie of hair and left the room. 

But apparently Tony still wasn’t done ruining Peter’s life because he walked up to Peter and held out his hand. “Phone,” he demanded. 

Peter scoffed. “I am _not_ giving you my phone.” 

“You can give me your phone temporarily and earn back the privilege, or I can make a call and have your service cut off and your data wiped completely,” Tony responded. 

“You don’t even have custody of me yet,” Peter spat. 

Tony wasn’t phased. “You and I both know I’m about to, though,” he said darkly, his hand still outstretched.

Peter clenched his fist. This was coercion and it did not feel okay. He could not believe Aunt May was willing to just sign over her rights and subject Peter to this. Did she realize that she wasn’t actually signing him up for a rehab program at all but instead just sending him to live with this controlling jerk? But since he apparently had no other option, he reached for his phone and placed it in Tony’s outstretched hand.

“I know you can’t see it right now, but I’m doing you a favor, kid.” Tony muttered as he tucked the phone into his own pocket. 

Peter didn’t even have the energy to argue with that ridiculous statement. He just curled up into a ball and rested his head on his knees to try and quell the nausea he was feeling. He wasn’t sure if it was from the drugs, or because of how trapped and upset he suddenly felt.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that there's a brief description of needles/a blood draw in this chapter

Peter sat slumped over on the floor for almost an hour, feeling increasingly miserable, before Pepper came in with a glass of water and gently offered him a more comfortable place to sit in the room next door. Peter was still upset overall but he didn’t protest this, mostly because he felt shaky and his head was starting to ache and he wouldn’t mind sitting somewhere softer than the cold tile floor. 

The doctor came back soon after with the results of the hair test, handing the paper to Tony without saying anything. Tony read it quietly, and besides a quick glance at Peter and a nod at Pepper, he didn’t react. Still, Peter didn’t need to read the paper. He knew what it said by the way Pepper left the room, presumably to go get those custody papers. Suddenly, for the first time in all of this, he started to feel ashamed. He knew how that paper made him look. He should have just peed in the cup after all, because this looked much worse. If that hair test actually went back 3 months, it was going to have a long list of different drugs on it. With a urine sample, maybe he could have played today off as a one-time thing. 

Peter knew that list wasn’t a fair picture. It’s not like he had been doing those drugs on a daily basis or throwing his life away. He was still getting decent grades in school even! But it didn’t matter, because that paper was going to show a laundry list of substances and he could feel the judgment from a mile away. 

Now that the results were in, Peter was brought back into the medical room. One of Tony’s bodyguards came in and made Peter strip down to his underwear and hand over his clothes as he did a full search of his possessions. Luckily, Peter never actually carried drugs around with him, he just used them with his friends. So he didn’t have anything on him except for a pack of cigarettes, which, to Peter’s dismay, they still confiscated.

Then, after the bodyguard had left and Peter had re-dressed, Tony and the doctor came back into the room and the doctor gave him a lecture about the consequences of smoking and substance use and Peter rolled his eyes the whole time. He half expected Tony to yell at him for it and tell him to pay attention, but Tony was mostly quiet. That was unusual for a man that typically always seemed to jump at a chance to lecture Peter these days. 

Then the doctor gently informed Peter that she wanted to do an STD exam.

“I don’t have any STD’s,” he muttered under his breath.

“You can’t know for certain without the exam. If you’re using any intravenous drugs or are sexually active, there’s always a chance -”

“I’m not,” Peter interrupted, a burning sensation quickly rising to his cheeks at the fact that he was having to have this conversation with Mr. Stark in the room.

The doctor didn’t seem to believe him. “We’re not here to judge you, we just want to make sure you’re healthy. Sex is perfectly natural, but there are risks. Especially if you engage in higher-risk behaviors like drug use or having multiple partners or same-sex partners -” 

Peter groaned and looked away. Of course. This was because of what Mr. Stark had walked in on. Peter did not want to relive that horrifying memory now that he was no longer high enough to be cushioned from feeling the humiliation.

“Peter,” Tony finally spoke, and his voice was the calmest Peter had heard it all day. “Nobody else can consent to this one, you have to. She just wants to do the exam to make sure you’re okay.” 

Somewhere, Peter acknowledged that this was Tony trying. It didn’t matter, because Peter was still pissed. Tony Stark was not his dad, even if he did have legal custody of him at this point. The fact that he suddenly wanted to force himself into that role after abandoning Peter all summer just made Peter more upset.

Maybe the doctor noticed the way that Peter tensed and his nostrils flared at Tony’s voice, because suddenly she turned to Tony. 

“Maybe this would be better if you left the room,” she suggested. “You’ll have to leave when I start the exam anyway.” 

Tony didn’t fight it. He just nodded and left.

Then the doctor turned back to Peter. “I know it feels like you are being attacked, but everyone is just worried about you,” she said gently. 

Peter scoffed. She had no idea what she was talking about. If Tony was so worried about Peter, he would pick up the damn phone every once in a while instead of just flipping between ignoring Peter or barking orders at Peter and expecting him to blindly follow them. But Peter wasn’t about to explain that to her. There was no point. 

“Okay, well regardless, I’m sure you know him well enough to know that he’s not going to let either of us leave this room until I do this exam, so can we try?” she asked. 

Peter refused to make eye contact. He absolutely did not want to do this, but she was right. Neither of them would be allowed to leave until it was done, and his head was pounding now. So he reluctantly nodded, staring determinedly at his shoes.

“To start, I have to ask you a few uncomfortable questions. Have you ever been tested for STDs before?” 

“No.” 

“How many sexual partners have you had in the past year?” 

“None.” 

She glanced up at him. “Anything you say to me stays between us, I won’t share your answers with Mr. Stark or anyone else,” she reassured. 

“None,” Peter repeated. 

“What about before the past year?” she asked. Peter had no idea if she believed him or not, but she had seemingly decided to move on. 

“None.” 

“What about other sexual acts that don’t include intercourse?”

Peter sighed. “None.” Then he finally looked at the doctor and decided to just move this along. Everyone already knew too much, there was no point in lying about the rest of it. 

“Look, I know what Mr. Stark thinks he saw and why he’s making me do this, but I’m not sexually active and I’m not sticking needles in myself either so there’s really no point. Okay? We took some ecstasy today and my friends and I were goofing around. We were high so we were being stupid, and he walked in at the worst moment. But it wasn’t what he thought. We all had our clothes on and nobody was doing anything sexual. It was just a stupid game. I tried to tell him that.” 

By the time he finished his explanation, he almost felt like crying. He wasn’t sure why, other than that this was humiliating and also his head was killing him and, oh yeah, his whole life was being taken away from him and he no longer had any control over anything, all because Mr. Stark felt like he had some sort of weird ownership over him and what Tony Stark wants, Tony Stark gets. 

The doctor smiled, and it seemed like maybe she believed him. “Okay,” she said. “How about this, then. We can skip the physical exam and just take some blood. That way we can still make Mr. Stark happy but we don’t have to make you uncomfortable.” 

Peter nodded, suddenly grateful for her kindness in this moment. After all, she didn’t have to be. She could be treating him like a criminal the way everyone else seemed to be. He felt himself able to relax slightly.

As she was prepping his arm for the blood draw, she looked up at him. “Ecstasy, huh?” she asked. “I don’t think I saw any amphetamines on your hair follicle results.” 

Peter shrugged. “You did say that anything I took today wouldn’t show up,” he mumbled.

“So first time then?” she asked.

Peter flinched as she stuck him with the needle. Then he nodded. 

“I bet you’re not feeling too great right now if you’re coming down from that,” she remarked.

Peter almost laughed. That was the understatement of the year. 

“What are your symptoms?” she asked as she removed the needle and pressed gauze to the injection site. 

“My head is killing me and I feel kind of nauseous,” Peter answered. 

She nodded. “Have you been drinking water?” 

“Ms. Potts brought me a glass earlier,” he replied.

“What about before that?” 

Peter shook his head. 

“Alright, I’m going to have you drink another glass, and I’ll get you some Tylenol and something for the nausea. After this glass, you should wait about an hour before drinking any more water. You want to stay hydrated tonight but you also don’t want to overdo it, okay?” 

Peter nodded.

“How about emotionally, how are you?” she asked as she cleaned up the medical supplies. “Feeling depressed? Anxious? Irritable?” 

Peter shrugged. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But I am being spontaneously shipped off to live with a complete jerk, so I’m not sure how else I should be feeling.” 

He wasn’t quite sure why he was telling her this. She was a doctor, of course, but maybe it was also because she was the only person that had bothered to ask since this whole ordeal started. It was nice to have someone talk to him like a person instead of a subordinate.

She smiled gently. “I know you think he doesn’t care about you, Peter, but I've seen him fire interns for less, yet for some reason, he's doing all of this for you. I don’t see him doing all this for any other kids on drugs, do you?” 

At that, Peter tightened his lips and didn’t respond. After all, Tony wasn’t doing this for Peter Parker. He was doing this for Spider-Man. There was a difference. But Peter couldn’t tell the doctor that.


	6. Chapter 6

Once Peter’s blood test results came back fine, he was released from the medical room and Tony and Pepper walked him to his quarters where he would be staying at the headquarters. Peter used to fantasize about things like this, but under very different circumstances. 

The room was simple. He had a bed, a desk, a small closet, and a small bathroom. Pepper informed him that someone would be gathering some of his school supplies, clothing, and other necessary belongings and that he should have them before Monday, but in the meantime, they had gotten him some extra clothing and toiletries. She also let him know that someone from the security team would be driving him to school every morning and picking him up every afternoon and that when he wasn’t in school he was allowed to leave his room, but not the headquarters. By 9pm he had to be back in his room and stay there for the night. She explained the rules in a business-like and matter-of-fact way, not sounding mean or hostile but just like she was briefing him on the situation.

“Hopefully I don’t even need to tell you this, but there will be no more drug use,” Tony added, and his tone was more firm. 

Peter refused to even look at Tony right now. “What about my phone?” he asked bitterly, staring at his shoes. 

“You will get that back once you’ve earned it by following the rules,” Tony answered. 

“How long will it take me to earn it back?” 

“When I say so.” 

Peter clenched his jaw at the non-answer and sat on his bed. He felt a bit better with the medication that the doctor had given him but he still didn’t feel good, and he wanted to be alone, so he stopped asking questions. 

Tony and Pepper seemed to take the cue, because they turned to leave. But before they had fully walked out, Tony turned back to Peter. 

“Peter, you might not like the rules, but don’t try to break them. Remember that I have eyes everywhere in this place and I can make things much worse for you.” 

“It’s true,” Pepper said, but she smiled and seemed to be trying to lighten the mood. “I had to talk him out of a 24/7 robot escort.” 

Peter didn’t respond or react, so they turned and left. 

As soon as the door was closed, Peter stood up and kicked his bed. This was absurd. He felt like he was being held hostage. He walked around the room and inspected it, but it was as boring as a room could get. His own little jail cell. 

So since he was going to drive himself absolutely crazy if he stayed in here, he decided to go explore. They did say he could leave his room and walk around headquarters, so he figured he would do that. 

He didn’t get very far before he ran into Pepper. She smiled at him. 

“I can give you a tour if you’d like,” she offered. 

Peter shook his head. “No thanks,” he muttered. 

“Okay, well are you hungry? I was going to bring you some dinner in a bit, but we can go to the kitchen and grab something if you want?” 

Peter shook his head again. He didn’t feel like he had any appetite at all. Plus, while Pepper seemed nice enough, she was also taking part in this kidnapping conspiracy of Tony’s, so Peter automatically resented her too.

“Alright, come and find me if you need anything,” she said gently.

Peter nodded and watched her turn to go into another room. He took a breath and kept walking. 

It took him a while to make his way around the headquarters and get an idea of the lay of the land. He avoided going into the lab that he saw Tony working in, and there were a few locked doors, but he managed to walk around and see many of the common areas. Peter from a few months ago would have been so excited about all of this. Now he just resented it. He just wanted to go back to his friends and be a normal teenager. He wished he had never met Tony Stark. 

Other than running into Pepper and spotting Tony through the lab window, Peter didn’t see anyone else around. He wondered if it was usually this empty, or if he would start to see the Avengers on a regular basis. That was another thing that, once upon a time would have felt super cool and amazing, but now, Peter just felt dread about. The idea of having to walk around this place and see those people, all of them knowing that he was stuck here under house arrest, sounded absolutely humiliating.

Eventually, he realized he was cutting it close to his curfew, so he turned and went back to his room. Pepper had left a meal on his desk, but he still wasn’t hungry, so he just sat down on his bed with a sigh.

He had nothing to do. He didn’t even have his school stuff yet to do homework. And he wasn’t tired at all.

It didn’t help that he felt extremely wired. Maybe the positive effects of the MDMA had worn off, but the stimulant was still coursing through his body and it left him feeling tense and on edge and that wasn’t a great feeling when you were stuck in a room with nothing to focus on. 

Maybe if Tony had left him with something, literally anything, to do, he would have been fine. But now, he was just left alone in a room with nothing but his mind and all he could do was think about how pissed off he was and how ridiculous this was and how his whole life had gotten completely turned upside down in a day. 

He hated this. 

He hated this, he hated this, he hated this, he hated this, he hated this. 

Peter didn’t realize at what point he had stood up and started pacing but that’s what he was doing now and he felt like he couldn’t sit still. He was buzzing with an angry nervous energy that he didn’t know what to do with, and his chest felt tight. He felt like he wanted to cry and scream and punch something and collapse all at the same time. 

He settled for sinking to the floor and gripping his hair in his hands as he let out a shaky breath. 

_ Fuck Tony Stark.  _

Suddenly deciding that there was no way he could be in here feeling like this all night, Peter stood up again and went to leave his room. He didn’t care about his stupid curfew or Tony’s stupid rules. But when he got to the door, he found that it was locked. They had literally locked him in here. What if he had been having a heart attack or something, were they just going to leave him to die in here? 

So Peter started angrily pounding on the door.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Hey, Mr. Stark!” 

Nothing. 

Peter started hitting the door even harder and yelling even louder. 

Nothing.

He stepped back for a moment, and was just about to start hitting it with his Spider-Man level strength instead of just normal person strength, when all of a sudden, the door slid open. 

Tony Stark was standing on the other side and he did not look amused. 

“You better have a damn good reason for all this noise,” Tony said with raised eyebrows. 

Peter realized he actually had no reason at all to give Tony. He didn’t know what he had been hoping to accomplish with this. He had just been panicking, feeling like a caged animal, and like the room was suffocating him. He still felt that way, and now it was worse, because now Tony Stark was here glaring at him and he didn’t know what to do next. He suddenly felt like it was hard to breathe. 

Something about Peter’s demeanor must have registered with Tony, though, because he quickly seemed to adopt a more neutral expression. 

“You okay, kid?”

The use of the familiar nickname reignited something in Peter, though, and the anger was just slightly more powerful than the panic, the combination of the two driving him to act without much thought. He just needed to get out of here. 

So Peter shoved Tony, hard. Spider-Man strength hard. And as a result, Tony flew backwards several feet. Then Peter ran.

He could hear Tony behind him, scrambling to get up and running after him. He knew he only had a short amount of time before Tony could be fully suited if he wanted to, and then Peter would not have any advantages at all. Peter did not have his web shooters and Tony had his suit and probably other gadgets that could easily just shoot him down from a distance. Besides, even if he did manage to escape, where would he go? He couldn’t go home, May was the one that had signed away her custody for him to live here. He didn’t want Iron Man going after any of his friends. So what was he going to do, live on the streets?

So Peter stopped. Something clicked that he was in a losing battle, and he stopped running and held his hands up in surrender, exhaling a deep breath. 

Tony caught up to him pretty quickly. 

“Wise choice,” Tony remarked as he turned to face Peter again. 

“Sorry sir,” Peter muttered, looking down at the ground. His blood was still boiling, but he was also realizing that he was completely helpless right now, and the only way he was going to get anywhere was by playing Tony’s game for a while and being a bit more strategic.

He also realized as he lowered his hands again that his hands were shaking, and he saw Tony glance at that too. 

“Let’s walk this way,” Tony said, gripping Peter’s shoulder and guiding him back in the direction they had come. 

Peter thought he was being led back to his room and that he was in for a major lecture or more consequences, but Tony walked them past his open room and down another hallway, towards the lab that Peter had spotted him in earlier. Once inside, Tony walked over and grabbed an extra chair, and put it near the area he had been working at. Peter saw that Tony had his suit laying on a table with some wires sticking out of one of the legs, surrounded by tools and parts. It looked like he could have been performing surgery on someone if the suit had been human. 

“I’m trying to re-calibrate the jets to give me a smoother take-off,” Tony explained as he gestured for Peter to sit in the chair. 

Peter hesitated for a minute, but then cautiously sat down. He didn’t want to sit here and let Tony talk robotics to him like this was some wholesome bonding moment. He was still super angry. But he also really didn’t want to go back to being locked in that empty room all by himself, so he decided he had to choose the lesser of two evils. At least this would give him something to focus on. 

So Tony worked, while occasionally asking F.R.I.D.A.Y. to calculate something or run a diagnostic, and he explained to Peter what he was doing as he went. Peter didn’t say much of anything in response. Didn’t smile or nod or give much indication that he was really listening. He just pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them and watched. Although he refused to interact with Tony, quietly, he at least found himself interested in the science of it and it definitely felt better than his jail cell. He still wanted to escape this nightmare, but for now, he had to be patient. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this how people develop Stockholm syndrome?


	7. Chapter 7

Peter finally crashed from the last of the MDMA leaving his system, so he had gotten up and silently left Tony to go to bed. Because of the crash and the fact that he had been up so late watching Tony work on the suit, he slept in. He even slept through someone bringing him two duffel bags full of clothes, as well as his backpack and school books that they had retrieved from his aunt’s house. He noticed them piled in the corner of his room when he woke up. 

Unlike last night where he had felt like he was buzzing out of his skin, today he just felt tired and depressed. The reality of everything that was happening was finally sinking in and he hated it. He laid in his bed staring at the ceiling and desperately wishing he could be back in his own bedroom, until he was interrupted by a knock on his door. Peter just grunted in response. 

“Are you awake yet?” Tony asked as he opened the door.

Peter ignored the question and continued to stare at the ceiling. 

So Tony sighed. “Get up,” he said, his voice more authoritative this time. 

Peter silently obeyed and stood up, still refusing to look at Tony. He didn’t have the fight in him to refuse, but he wasn’t happy about it either. 

“Come on, I have something to show you,” Tony said, stepping out of the way so Peter could leave the room. 

Once again, Peter silently obeyed and followed Tony out. 

Tony led them down another hallway and then past a door that had previously been locked when Peter had been exploring by himself. The room they entered was about the size of two gymnasiums and completely empty. 

Peter raised his eyebrows questioningly. 

Then Tony walked over to a wall and opened it somehow. Peter wasn’t quite sure how. Inside the wall, hanging on display, was Peter’s suit. At least that answered that question.

Below the suit was a screen, which Tony touched and a computer system came to life. Tony pushed a few buttons, and then the floor of the room opened up and a bunch of pillars of various heights rose from the floor. A few more buttons, and another wall on the opposite side of the room opened up and a silver robot flew out and landed in the center of the room. 

“It’s a training module,” Tony explained. “You fight the robots.” 

Peter stared at the robot and still didn’t say anything. 

“You’re not allowed to take the suit out of this room, but you can practice for a while if you want.”

Peter frowned slightly at that. He didn’t have the words for how angry this offer made him, and there Tony was, standing there acting like he was giving Peter a gift or something. He had taken everything away and then offered a breadcrumb and he expected Peter to be grateful for it. 

“Can I go back to my room?” Peter asked flatly. 

“You don’t want to try it out?” Tony asked, sounding confused.

“No, I don’t want to try it out,” Peter said. “I want to go back to my room.” 

Tony sighed and turned back to the screen, pushing another button that made the robot withdraw and the pillars sink back into the floor. Then he closed the wall. 

“You can’t just mope around all day,” Tony said, turning back to Peter.

“Why not?” Peter retorted. He was so sick of Tony telling him what to do.

“Because I said so.”

Peter scoffed and looked away. 

“You might be able to manipulate May into this arrangement and then take away my phone and my friends and my life, but believe it or not, you can’t actually dictate how I feel,” Peter said angrily. “So unless you’re going to tackle me and put me in that suit by force, I’m not wearing it. And even if you get it on me, I’d rather let that robot kill me than do your stupid training module.” 

Tony rubbed his eyes. He looked stressed. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then seemed to reconsider.

“Fine, you can go,” Tony said instead, sounding defeated. 

So without another word, Peter turned and left the training room. As soon as he was back in his room, he threw himself onto his bed with a huff. 

_ Fuck Tony Stark.  _


	8. Chapter 8

On Monday, he got ready for school and someone from Tony’s security team drove him. It was nearly an hour drive, which was miserable as it was, but made even more depressing because they rode in complete silence. The old Peter might have tried to get to know the driver, would have been excited because anyone connected to Tony or the Avengers seemed so cool to him. But this Peter didn’t care about that anymore. The only part he was excited about was getting away from that headquarters. 

As soon as he got to his locker, he saw Jordan waiting there. 

“Dude, what the hell happened on Saturday?” Jordan asked as Peter started to arrange his books to get ready for his first class. “Was I hallucinating or did Tony freaking Stark show up and kidnap you?” 

Peter laughed at that description, because it was a little too true. “Nope, not hallucinating. Long story, but I don’t think I’ll be able to hang out with everyone for a while.” 

“Why, what’s going on?” Jordan asked, following Peter down the hall.

Peter sighed. “Well I was doing this uh, this internship. For Tony Stark. And he’s got these really intense rules for his employees, because the work he does is so important, you know? So anyway, he uh, he found out about the drugs,” Peter muttered. “And he told my aunt and now I’m super grounded. Don’t even have a phone.” 

It was a little misleading, but not really too much of a lie.

“Damn,” Jordan replied. “Sorry, man.” 

Peter just nodded as he turned to enter his first class. He felt absolutely miserable and didn’t really pay attention to anything all morning.

But at lunchtime, Peter was heading to the cafeteria when he saw Jordan gesturing for him to come down the hallway. So he changed course and followed Jordan outside to the back of the school, where he also found Ash.

“Hey,” Peter said, excited to see another friend. 

“Brought something, thought you might want to join,” Ash said with a smile, flashing a joint at Peter for a second. 

Peter smiled, but then hesitated. If he got caught, he’d probably end up being homeschooled and would never see daylight again. Yet, he was still tempted. Surely he could smoke a little bit and Tony wouldn’t find out. 

So the three of them spent the rest of the lunch hour tucked behind the school hanging out and smoking. As the lunch hour was ending and Peter made to go back inside, Ash grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into an unexpected and uncharacteristic hug.

“Jordan says you’re imprisoned and we won’t get to see you much for a while?” he asked into Peter’s shoulder. 

Peter nodded, but he was confused. He didn’t expect Ash to get so sentimental about it.

Then Ash smiled and tucked something into Peter’s backpack. “A present for the road, then,” Ash said as he pulled back with a wink. 

Peter laughed and thanked Ash, then headed inside. 

The rest of his day felt much easier thanks to the time spent with his friends, and when the final bell rang, he didn’t mind so much about hopping back in the security guard’s car. 

When he got back to the headquarters, he decided to head to his room, but paused when he heard voices. It took him a minute to figure out what was going on, before he realized that he was hearing an Avenger’s meeting. He had no idea where the meeting was occurring, but thanks to his spidey senses, he heard it pretty clearly. 

_ “Did you get a location?” Tony asked.  _

_ “Not specifically, but we know he’s still in the city,” Vision responded.  _

_ “Okay, let’s keep looking for more specifics. This needs to stay on the down low,” Tony directed. “No need to cause mass panic, which is what will happen if everyone finds out those weapons are all out there.”  _

Peter stiffened. He wondered if they were talking about the same guy with wings that he had been fighting that started all of this. He didn’t want to think about that situation anymore. 

_ “It’s a whole plane full of weapons, Tony. If we don’t get them back soon, it’s not going to end well,” Rhodes said.  _

Suddenly deciding that he did not want to hear any more of this, Peter turned around to go back out the front doors of the headquarters. A security guard stopped him at the door. 

“Oh come on, I’m not going anywhere,” Peter pleaded. “I just want to sit outside. I won’t go more than 20 feet from the building, I promise.” 

The security guard eyed him for a moment. “Ten feet,” he huffed. 

“Ten feet,” Peter agreed. 

The security guard relented and let him walk through the front doors. The added layer of walls shut out the sound, so Peter didn’t have to overhear that conversation anymore. He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized how anxious it was making him until he was away from it. 

Peter sat on a railing near the door. He saw the security guard watching him, so he made a big show of sitting down and gesturing that he was following the rules. 

Peter took a deep breath and tried to settle himself, but it wasn’t working. The Avengers had lost a whole plane full of weapons. Was that Peter’s fault? Because Peter screwed up that night on the ferry boat and the winged man got away? Tony had said that other people were going to handle it, but Peter had gotten in the way. He had almost got a lot of people killed, and he had let the bad guy get away because of it.

No. It was Tony’s fault for not letting him in on the plan. For ignoring him. 

He suddenly felt extremely agitated and he couldn’t shake the feeling.

Clenching his fists, he looked up. The security guard was talking to someone and was momentarily distracted, and Peter made a spur of the moment decision. He stood up on the railing and leaped to the wall, catching himself on a window. He quickly scrambled sideways and around the corner to a solid wall before anyone could see him through the window. Technically, he wasn’t breaking the deal. He was exactly 0 feet away from the building. He was just tired of being watched. 

He crawled all the way up to the roof and sat down. He watched two security guards run outside and look around in a panic, and he smiled slightly. The security team must not have been briefed on who Peter was, because they didn’t bother to look up. 

Finally feeling like he could breathe, Peter pulled out whatever it was that Ash had stuffed into his bag earlier. What he found was a cigarette carton, which he opened to find had not only a few cigarettes in it, but also a lighter (Ash was a lifesaver) and a small baggie with three small white pills in it. Peter had no idea what the pills were, but he knew he had nowhere to stash them, so it was a use it or lose it situation. And he could really use something to take the edge off right now. 

So without hesitating any further, he swallowed all three of the pills. Then he pulled out one of the cigarettes and lit it, savoring the feeling of it. After all, he knew it wasn’t going to last long. 

Sure enough, he was about halfway through the cigarette before his spidey senses tingled, and the next minute he heard the door to the roof of the building open.

Peter didn’t bother to turn around. He just held the carton of cigarettes up in surrender. The person walked over to grab them, and then to Peter’s surprise, sat down next to him and lit one. He looked over to watch Pepper take a long drag on the cigarette before looking over at Peter. 

“I’ve never been much of a smoker,” she hummed as she looked at the cigarette she had just inhaled. “These things are terrible for you, you know.” 

Peter couldn’t help but crack a smile at how unexpected and bold her reaction was. He had been expecting Tony and he had been expecting a lecture or consequences. He had NOT been expecting Pepper to sit down and smoke with him. 

“How was school today?” Pepper asked as she took another drag.

Peter brought his knees up to his chest and shrugged. The question was so normal, but life wasn’t at all normal right now. For some reason, her simple question made his heart ache and made him almost feel like crying. Something about Pepper’s presence and her question reminded him of May, and even though he was pissed at her too, he also realized that he missed her. He had not even had a chance to talk to her in all of this chaos the past few days. He wondered how she could have just signed away custody and shipped Peter off without even saying goodbye. That hurt to think about.

“That bad, huh?” Pepper asked, apparently reading the emotions on his face. 

“School was fine,” Peter muttered, as he put out his now finished cigarette. 

Pepper put out her cigarette too. Before she could say anything else, the door to the roof opened again and Tony walked out. Pepper and Peter both stood up to face him and Peter watched as Pepper put the cigarette carton behind her own back to hide it from Tony. 

“Are you crazy?!” Tony asked Peter as he approached. “Climbing a building in broad daylight without a mask on? What were you thinking?!”

“Tony,” Pepper pleaded, seemingly trying to get him to calm down.

Peter was already upset. He was upset about the bad guy that apparently stolen all of the weapons due to Peter screwing up. He was upset about May abandoning him. He was upset about his whole life being taken from him. He didn’t have it in him to be worried about this too. And maybe the mystery pills were kicking in because, although it still made him upset, he also felt kind of detached from Mr. Stark’s yelling. So he just stared at the ground and shrugged. 

“Inside! Now!” Tony barked, pointing at the door he had just come out of.

Peter silently obeyed, walking past Tony and through the door and down the stairs. Tony escorted him all the way into his room.

By the time they got there, Peter could definitely tell that the pills were kicking in, because he felt dizzy. In hindsight, maybe he should not have taken all three without even knowing what they were. He briefly wondered if he should tell Tony about it, because they were a lot stronger than he was expecting, but he did not want to give Tony another reason to judge him right now. So he kept his mouth shut and just sat down on his bed to not give away how wobbly he felt.

“What the hell Peter?” Tony continued his lecture. “Did you even think about what might have happened? Do you know how many people could have seen you?” 

Peter wanted to reply that it was Tony’s fault that Peter didn’t have a suit, and that if Tony cared so much about Peter’s identity he wouldn’t have taken it away in the first place. But instead his mouth just felt dry. 

“Answer me!” Tony yelled. 

Peter pressed his hands to his temples, trying to stop the world from spinning. 

“Sir, I don’t…” he muttered, his sentence trailing off. He felt confused. Now he knew for sure he had fucked up. He mustered all of his willpower and strength to get his next words out clearly. “I need a doctor.” 

The last thing he saw was Tony’s demeanor change from anger to confusion, and then everything went black.


End file.
